Journey Into The Ways Of Snake-handlers

June 18, 1995|By KEVIN NANCE Book Reviewer

As a teen-ager, Lee Smith used to go with her girlfriends to services at charismatic snake-handling churches in Jolo, W.Va., and Big Rock, Va.

``It was mostly just to gape and gawk, mostly to make fun,'' the novelist says. ``Still, those images just haunted me. The belief those people have! The total giving up of control. And of course the serpent-handling, which is a very dangerous practice.''

Those haunting images are born again in Smith's new novel, ``Saving Grace,'' the dark tale of Gracie Shepherd, daughter of an itinerant snake-handling preacher in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Snake-handling ``both compels and repels me, draws me and terrifies me,'' said Smith, who grew up in the small Virginia mountain town of Grundy and now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. She is on an 18-city book tour through June.

Writing the book was ``the strangest experience,'' she said. ``It was like being on a very scary but thrilling carnival ride. All I had to do was hang on.''

The ride began when photographer Shelby Lee Adams asked Smith to write an introduction to a book of his Appalachian portraits, including a series of photos of snake-handlers. She had always been fascinated by varieties of religious expression, especially religious ecstasy, and the Adams photos set the memory bells ringing.

``It just brought up a whole host of images from my childhood,'' she said. ``I decided that I couldn't write an introduction about the people in those pictures, so instead I wrote some voices for them. One of those voices, a woman, was so strong that I couldn't get her out of my mind. She wanted to tell her whole story. I didn't really have to write it. I just had to show up.''

That woman became Florida Grace Shepherd - ``Florida for the state I was born in, Grace for the Grace of God,'' she says in the novel's opening paragraph - who watches as her father, an ``anointed'' true believer who nonethless neglects his wife and children, ends up destroying the family. By halfway through the book, a teen-aged Gracie ends up traveling the South with her father as his assistant during services.

When her father finally abandons her, Gracie embarks on a journey of self-discovery that includes two marriages (to a preacher and a rock-and-roll housepainter, respectively) before returning home to reclaim her dark heritage.

As part of her research, Smith attended more services and got to know several believers. When she asked one woman why she handled snakes, the woman said, ``I do this out of an intense desire for holiness.'' Later she added, ``When you've got the serpent in your hands, the whole world gets an edge to it.''

Smith came to see snake-handling in the context of the dual nature of the South. Is the phenomenon an expression of true religious belief and emotion, or is it a showy display designed to impress and recruit new adherents?

``I think the truth lies somewhere in between,'' she said. ``There are always people attracted to it for the wrong reasons, but there are always people who truly believe in it. And you never doubt the integrity of the group feeling in the services.''